A Life After
by Shiny Broken Shard
Summary: She would never be a medium like Gene or Masako and it only took Mai losing her SPR family when Naru and Lin leave for England and almost four years to accept that and be happy that she was Mai and not a replacement for either of them. There was nothing to replace with SPR gone. At least she believed SPR would never be brought back together. (Rating to be on the safe side)


_**DISCLAIMER:**_I make no claim to owning either Ghost Hunt or Katekyo Hitman Reborn in any way shape or form. This writing is done purely for entertainment value and no profit is being made with this work at all.

_**NOTES/WARNINGS:**_ Unbeta'd. I also state now that any characters mentioned in here from Katekyo Hitman Reborn are not going to have any bearing on the story outside of name drops as well as for my own entertainment at picturing a world where these two series share a universe even if they don't actually ever meet. I also am mainly basing this in the anime with some aspects of the manga being picked and brought in. I also have not read any of the novels so any information from there likely won't end up in here. So I'm taking creative license with some things. Like Mai's parents.

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She had always been good at Kagome***** when she had been little.

Her trusting people and flashes of Knowing when someone was trying to rip her off or sell her a shoddy product when she had to shop and haggle for herself when her teacher had moved to a new city had also been signs. She had let her immaturity and attempts to be welcomed and wanted by those employed, even irregularly by Naru, that created her attempts at a makeshift family within SPR blind her to those signs. Even after confirmation and the shift in them _wanting_ her to dream and let her abilities help them made her downplay and talk herself out of believing in her own powers. The verbal barbs, even if done in jest when she had been tested had stung deeply and dug in too deep for her to get over them fully even when she realized they had not really been said to harm her. Of course none of them who had years of finding and figuring out their spiritual abilities had seemed to forget how unstable and terrifying having to realize you can do things most people cannot do and that there wasn't some easy handbook to help you see what you should and should not do in regards to those powers.

Sometimes when she spends time to "reflect" and clear her mind before bed she wonders if maybe that was part of why she was left to fend for herself when Naru and Lin and returned to England. Her fear of her abilities and thus never truly telling just how far they could go why she wasn't even given some help with them or even a lead to help herself. Maybe they had all thought her abilities were just not worth any extra help and would die down just as quickly as they seemingly appeared.

It hurt but in many ways she could see why they thought that.

She had been tightlipped about herself, months having gone by before any of them even realizing she was an orphan. She was protecting herself and in a way testing them unfairly she guesses. Waiting and hoping that her family would care enough about her to ask her about such things when she had given answers freely when asked. None of them had though, so none of them knew about her always winning at Kagome or how she could tell when someone was being sincere or not in certain instances. They only knew that on cases she dreamed and that she was a ghost magnet of the danger sort since they never seemed to get a case where her being contacted by the dead did not lead to an injury of some sort. No one knew her father had been a tailor who followed the older ways when making the traditional garments which meant times where they lived off of what mother could waitressing until a large lump sum was deposited after the finished product was delivered. My seemingly never ending mixtures and strengths of teas went unnoticed so none of them ever found out about how mother was a tea fanatic and had talked about having her own little tea shop like the ones found along the roads back when horses were the fastest way to get about for most people.

Things she would have liked to tell, but had been too afraid to give freely since no one else gave away personal information within the group easily and she did not want to seem even more obnoxious then she felt she was being so new to ghost hunting and the paranormal.

These were all made in to her excuses when the weekly meet ups turned monthly, then bimonthly, until before her graduation the only ones she ever say physically were Yasu and John, and even then mostly when she went to them. They seemed willing to allow the distance to grow between them so she shouldn't feel guilty when she had paid her final rent on her small flat and a few boxes at a time left Tokyo behind and settled back in the prefecture of her childhood. The community college was small, but had a decent business course, and there were enough opened storefronts that she could save up for a loan in time. Even finding work wasn't all that hard especially when her tea making was enough to satisfy more traditionally minded, but innovated enough for those trying to entice more customers of the younger crowd.

She ended up helping clean tables and make tea at a little sushi place. It was hardly a fraction of what she had once made when she had ended up working as a tea maker and assistant for SPR, but she had learned early on that she had been over paid for what work she had done even taking into account cases. That small nest egg though was now a blessing as she took classes and learned all of those complicated rules and situations that apparently came with wanting to own your own shop. Even one as simple as a tea shop.

Her dreams were empty of ghosts and a sad yet kindly smiling teenager. When that had happened she was still uncertain.

If it was not for the foxfires and will o wisps that still danced around the corner or her eyes when she passed into a place she just knew had a lingering spirit she would have convinced herself that her powers truly were caused by Gene and working with Naru. It was her turning point that would define how she would see the world, even if she did not realize such at that moment. If she ignored those flashes and explained the way her flashes of intuition as just observant and unconscious focus then she would go back to the Mai before SPR. She instead turned fully into those flashes and used those insights more and more in her day and soon she realized it wasn't gone…it had just shifted into a different shape.

She would never be like Masako, or even a fraction of what Gene had been when he had lived. Before such thoughts would have hurt and scared her, because then she would have made herself believe that she was useless and wouldn't be able to go on cases anymore. Now, in a time when SPR was gone and those she had wished to hold desperately too were living their own lives separate from her own it didn't scare her as it once had. It didn't hurt to admit these things. Her powers may not be the best anymore for serious ghost hunting and would never cross into the realm of mediums like Masako and Gene, but for Mai Taniyama who tried to help anyone living or dead if she could, they were enough.

She was twenty when her acceptance that her life of SPR was over when something changed.

She had grown comfortable in the little prefecture. Taking classes and learning from her boss at Takesushi. Even being a spectator to Mister Yamamoto's son as he grew up and started middle school, and the little dramas brought about as he made actual friends and not just acquaintances. Even the steps between her and a little shop a few blocks from her current place of employment were easily overtaken with enough time.

So when the whirlwind of energy that was not young Sasagawa coming to once more ask Takeshi if he wanted to join the boxing club yet she had been in shock for a few moments. The dirty tea cup she had been picking up held in a dangerously loose grip as the smiling force known as Madoka spotted her.

She did not know if she wanted to go into that uncertainty again or retreat into the mindless routine of safety she had created here. Madoka though seemed determine to at least make her think about risking losing it all again to once more take on cases.

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*****Kagome is a children's game in Japan that is a bit like Ring Around the Rosy. Only in Kagome one child stands/sits/kneels in the middle of the circle with their eyes closed and covered and after the rhyme has to guess who is standing behind them so they can get out and the person they guessed goes in. In a lot of animes that bring this game up it also is hinted at being a way to test for psychic powers in children since it is not exactly easy to follow and track all the voices of those circling and chanting. I feel that the way Ghost Hunt portrays Mai's abilities like an animal instinct that she must have been good at such a game since it makes use of her instincts being able to sense if someone standing behind her is going to hurt her or not.


End file.
